Cambodia Opposition Rejects Election Result, Seeks Probe

Sam Rainsy, the leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, tells reporters on Monday that he rejects the results of Sunday’s vote due to “irregularities.”

EPA

By Chun Han Wong

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Despite scoring strong gains in Sunday’s elections, Cambodia’s opposition has rejected the results over what it calls “serious irregularities” in the vote won by longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen and is seeking international support for a probe.

At a Monday news briefing, leaders of the Cambodia National Rescue Party called on the country’s election commission to review claims of widespread fraud in an unusually competitive poll, which produced a dramatic swing in support from Mr. Hun Sen but still left his Cambodian People’s Party firmly in power.

“We don’t accept the election results as proclaimed by [Cambodia’s election commission] or by other parties, because there are too many irregularities with far-reaching implications that have distorted the will of the people,” CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, 64, told reporters.

Officials from the CPP and the National Election Committee weren’t immediately available for comment. The ruling party has challenged accusers to produce evidence of fraud to the election commission—a nominally independent agency that is led by officials closely linked to the CPP.

Mr. Rainsy also said his party won’t negotiate with Mr. Hun Sen and the CPP for places in Cambodia’s government, despite securing the strongest opposition showing since 1998.

Mr. Rainsy, who was barred by election officials from contesting Sunday’s vote, called on the National Election Committee to launch a joint investigation alongside independent electoral experts and representatives from the United Nations, civil society, as well as the CPP and the CNRP.

He set a Aug. 31 deadline for this probe, but didn’t elaborate on what could take place thereafter.

Preliminary results Sunday showed the CPP winning 68 out of 123 legislative seats, compared to the CNRP’s 55. The ruling party had won 90 seats in 2008, while opposition groups that merged last year to form the CNRP clinched 29 seats five years ago.

Official results could come later this week, but the CNRP charged that here were sufficient signs of likely electoral manipulation to justify a thorough inquiry.

About 1.2 million to 1.3 million voters were denied a chance to cast their ballots to irregularities on voter lists, Mr. Rainsy asserted. He estimated there were also about 1 million “ghost” voters on electoral registers and about 200,000 duplicate names.

These claims mirrored findings from local election monitor Comfrel, which earlier said it detected irregularities in Sunday’s general election—Cambodia’s fifth since a 1991 cease-fire ended decades of civil war and genocide.

At Monday’s briefing, Mr. Rainsy also denied speculation that his party could seek places in Cambodia’s government through power-sharing talks with the CPP.

“We won’t bargain to get a position in power,” the French-educated former finance minister said. “We are serious about our demands to find justice for people who were denied a chance to vote.”

Sunday’s results meant that 60-year-old Mr. Hun Sen—who has been prime minister for 28 years—and his party would lose its two-thirds majority, giving opposition forces greater sway in the lawmaking process. It was also the first time the CPP lost seats after showing gains in every vote since the United Nations reintroduced competitive elections to this once war-torn nation in 1993.

The CPP has in the past governed in coalition with the royalist FUNCINPEC party, which was wiped out in Sunday’s vote as it lost the two seats it held from the outgoing parliament.

Mr. Hun Sen and his party had built strong loyalties in many parts of Cambodia, particularly rural areas, helped by their record of bringing political stability and presiding over steady economic growth in the one of the world’s least-developed countries.

But his standing has been hurt by growing anger over rural land conflicts, corruption, as well as urban disenchantment with high youth unemployment and decades of effectively one-party rule.